Sight Unseen
by a. loquita
Summary: Takes place after Carter is in command of the Atlantis expedition. She contemplates a picture in her office of fishing, while O'Neill contemplates her letters home. Angsty S/J


**Sight Unseen**

(AN: Special thanks goes out to sg-1fanintn for her great ideas)

It's almost a bad thing that she has a picture of him in her office. Fishing, no less. There are days when she stares at it and gets lost in her own head, in the memories and the dreams. She should be paying attention, should be signing requisition forms, reviewing performance evaluations, and reading threat assessments. She should be pushing paper but sometimes she can't. Not when she looks at his image and knows he's 3 million light-years away and counting, because the universe is expanding and each day they are a little further apart.

She sometimes wonders why she agreed to this assignment. But then she remembers what he taught her, to have confidence in herself and never back down from a challenge. This challenge however, is unlike any she has faced before. It's not like facing a Goa'uld or Prior or Replicator. It's not like dealing with the loss of a teammate. It's not at all like the heat of battle and the fear of never making it home. This challenge is one that military tactics cannot defeat. It isn't something they teach you about in the classrooms of the Academy. This challenge is complex because of its utter simplicity– she misses him.

She misses him and she's sure everybody knows. She wonders how many under her command have entered her office and caught her staring at the picture. How many of them know? Because it has to be written all over her face in those moments when the longing overtakes her.

She misses him and there are no defenses against that. There's no way to release it. She finds this emotion to be the one and only that the veil of command can't hide. She can't be strong against it, and she's not even sure she wants to.

She misses him and she is afraid of forgetting. Losing the memory of his scent, the feel of his arms around her, the warmth of his gaze. She doesn't want time and distance to steal those things away from her because some days, they are all that keep her going.

She misses him, and wants to be at his side but she can't. She can't be there and he can't be here. The separation is as necessary as it is poignant.

Writing letters to each other is not enough. She needs him and yet she can't find the right way to tell him that. There aren't enough words to describe the things she wants to say to him. Thank you, need you, love you. All seem to fall short, even if they are the core of her being just as much as her next breath and her heartbeat.

There aren't enough words, or the right ones haven't been invented yet. All she can do is take out a piece of paper and write something short, to the point, something she hopes he understands and can read the meaning beyond the words. She puts the letter in the mailbag that's headed back to Earth in the morning. It carries only three words to him.

"I miss you."

* * *

He knows she's careful about how she writes letters to him, the ones that travel 3 million light-years. He knows she chooses her words carefully, concerned about saying too much or not quite enough. He opens the letters when he is alone and he savors every word as much as the loops and lines of her handwriting. Before she went to Atlantis he never really noticed her handwriting but now, it's the only physical connection he has had with her in many months. He studies it, and decides that it is as beautiful as every other aspect of her. 

Sometimes she reminisces about the past. She tells him things he never knew, like the time she hallucinated an image of him to help get her though. Or the time she wished she had gone and talked to him, instead of shutting him out. She admits mistakes and flaws but none of them change the way he feels about her. She knows that they won't, and that's why she can tell him.

Sometimes she writes about her fears. She always had a secret but nagging lack of confidence in her leadership skills. It's something he tried to teach her to overcome but she is who she is, and always will be. He reads her fears on the page and he tries all he can to lessen them. Though, he's sure she won't believe the compliments he gives her. She thinks there's an alternative motivation behind them.

Sometimes she writes about the boring details of daily life on a base. The paperwork, coffee, meetings, and he knows she just needs to get those things off her chest. She can't be seen complaining to those whom she leads. She has to be strong, never showing her doubts. So, he is happy to be her sounding board.

Sometimes she says very little at all. Like today, when the letter came only saying, "I miss you." He didn't need more in order to understand. He imagines it's exactly the same feeling he has at the end of the day, when he walks home through the cold winter air to an empty house. He sleeps in a bed that is too big and half-full. He dreams of her and his hands sometimes twitch with the memory of what it felt like to touch her.

He is here, and she is there. There has always been one barrier or another. But barriers have never changed the strong feelings between them, some expressed by spoken words and some not. The feelings are simply there, as they have been for so long. No distance can change them, because they are true and they are constant.

He writes her back, his own short letter. Quick, but admitting the one truth that makes cold winters and empty houses something he can endure.

"I love you."


End file.
